WorldCom, Another one tries to deceive by fraudulent accounting

Abstract

A small telecommunication company by the name of long distance discount service, was started in 1983 by Bernard Ebber. By acquisition of many other small companies it grew large such that it became second largest telecommunication company in early 90's.It acquired almost 60 companies including large companies which were main competitor like MCI. After this much number of acquisition, company changed its name to WorldCom. Company was quite popular in media as it had significant control over the internet and other telecommunication services. In late 90's telecommunication industry suffered from a downturn but Ebber was determined to maintain WorldCom's position in the market. So in order to not let the share price of WorldCom go down, WorldCom manipulated its accounts and instead of showing losses, which was the actual picture, Company showed profits. Company was able to practice this fraudulent accounting till mid of 2002 till the fraud was discovered by internal auditors of WorldCom. This was the biggest fraud ever done in the history.